$50 to Cheer for the Donald and a t-shirt

Posted on March 14, 2016March 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Casting Call…something Trump has on speed dial?

We don’t want to keep the signs though. Corey, you know that aggressive campaign chair person was asked if actors were paid to cheer, his response? NO….Ahem Corey….c’mon dude.

Let’s go back to Trump’s planning and announcement in 2015 shall we?

Donald Trump Campaign Offered Actors $50 to Cheer for Him at Presidential Announcement

THR: A casting call was sent out last week “looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement.”

Donald Trump‘s big presidential announcement Tuesday was made a little bigger with help from paid actors — at $50 a pop.

New York-based Extra Mile Casting sent an email last Friday to its client list of background actors, seeking extras to beef up attendance at Trump’s event.

“We are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement,” reads the June 12 email, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “We understand this is not a traditional ‘background job,’ but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought.” (Read the full email at the bottom of the post.)

Megan SpeciaVerified account ‏@meganspecia 16 Jun 2015

.@realDonaldTrump staffer not too pumped i took pic of “homemade” signs (passed out to people before event) in trash pic.twitter.com/zLL2ETBI79

The pay was listed as $50 for less than three hours of work. According to the email, Extra Mile was reaching out to potential extras in partnership with Gotham Government Relations and Communications, a New York-Based political consulting group that has worked with Trump in the past. Gotham GR had no comment.

Questions as to whether the Trump campaign had hired extras were first raised Wednesday by anti-Trump activist Angelo Carusone, who came across an Instagram photo showing a man he recognized as a background actor posing at the Trump event. Carusone screengrabbed the photo of the actor, Domenico Del Giacco, and published it in a blog post. The photo shows Del Giacco with a woman, identified in the now-deleted Instagram post as actress Courtney Klotz. (Del Giacco has since deleted his entire Instagram account.)

When reached for comment about the Trump casting call, a person who answered the phone at Extra Mile said, “We don’t know anything about that.” When pressed about whether this response was a denial of the story, the person said she couldn’t comment further and hung up. Additional calls to Extra Mile went unanswered.

Asked if Trump paid anyone to attend the event, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said “no,” and that he had never heard of Extra Mile or Gotham GR.

“Mr. Trump draws record crowds at almost every venue at which he is a featured speaker,” Lewandowski told The Hollywood Reporter. “The crowds are large, often record-setting and enthusiastic, often with standing ovations. Mr. Trump’s message is, ‘Make America great again.’

Del Giacco and Klotz did not respond to a request for comment.

In politics, “astroturfing” is when people are hired to attend a rally or event in order to lend the appearance of grassroots support. They are typically contracted out to political consulting firms, much like Gotham GR. The practice is unsurprisingly considered bad form.

***

Here’s the full email from Extra Mile, with contact information redacted.

Hi there—

We are working helping one of are [sic] associates out at Gotham GR – http://gothamgr.com/ with a big event happening on TUESDAY 6/16/15.

This is an event in support of Donald Trump and an upcoming exciting announcement he will be making at this event.

This event is called “People for a Stronger America.” The entire group is a pro-small business group that is dedicated to encouraging Donald Trump and his latest ventures. This event will be televised.

We are looking to cast people for the event to wear t-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement.

We understand this is not a traditional “background job,” but we believe acting comes in all forms and this is inclusive of that school of thought.

This event is happening LIVE and will be from 8:45AM-11:30AM. LESS THAN 3 HOURS

This will take place inside / interior.

The rate for this is: $50 CASH at the end of the event.

We would love to book you if you are interested and still available.

Please let us know and we will get back to you with confirmation.

Putin: Mission Achieved in Syria, AH not so much

Posted on March 14, 2016March 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

But but but: Putin orders withdrawal from Syria after being told of Gulf States decision to ship anti-aircraft systems to rebels over west objections. Furthermore, Russia’s S-400 will stay in Syria and Tartous Naval base will continue been developed and expanded. Putin needs permanent access and routes in the Mediterranean.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Moscow will begin withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria.

On Monday, President Putin indicated that the Kremlin will start withdrawing its main forces in Syria, saying that the military has largely achieved its objectives.

“I think that the task that was assigned to the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces as a whole has achieved its goal, and so I order the defense minister to start tomorrow withdrawing the main part of our military factions from the Syrian Arab Republic,” President Putin said during a meeting with the Russian Defense and Foreign Ministries, according to RIA Novosti.

The withdrawal will begin on Tuesday.

“With the participation of the Russian military…the Syrian armed forces and patriotic Syrian forces have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism and have taken the initiative in almost all respects,” the Russian president said.

“There has been a significant turning point in the fight against terrorism,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Putin expressed hope that this decision will encourage all parties involved in the Syrian conflict to pursue a peaceful resolution.

“I ask the ministry of foreign affairs to intensify the participation of the Russian Federation in the organization of the peace process towards a solution to the Syrian crisis,” Putin said.

Moscow will, however, maintain a military presence in Syria, and a deadline for complete withdrawal has not yet been announced. Putin also indicated that Russian forces will remain at the port of Tartus and Hmeymim airbase in Latakia.

“Our bases of operations — our naval base in Tartus and our air base at Hmeymim — will operate as usual. They should be protected from land, sea, and air,” Putin said. “That part of our military group has traditionally been in Syria over the course of many years, and today will have to perform a very important function in monitoring the ceasefire and creating conditions for the peace process.”

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia has informed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of the decision. A statement from Assad’s office stresses that the Kremlin has nonetheless pledged to continue its support for Syria in “confronting terrorism.”

Assad also recognized the “professionalism, courage and heroism” of Russian Army soldiers and officers.

During the phone call, both Assad and Putin agreed that the ceasefire has led to significant reduction in bloodshed, and the humanitarian situation has improved.

“The sides expressed shared opinion that the implementation of the ceasefire in Syria has helped to sharply reduce the bloodshed and to improve the humanitarian situation in the country,” the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

Assad also expressed hope that peace talks in Geneva will lead to concrete results, and stressed the need for a political process in Syria.

Earlier on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow’s anti-terrorist air campaign created the conditions for political process on Syrian reconciliation.

Obama, He Freed Them and They Kill

Posted on March 14, 2016March 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

How about next we pass a law in Congress, that it is against the law not to follow and apply the law? Imagine the government savings….and especially the lives saved….

Free to Kill: 124 Criminal Aliens Released By Obama Policies Charged with Homicide Since 2010

Vaughn, CIS: In response to congressional inquiries, ICE has released information on some of the criminal aliens who have been released by the agency since 2010. Specifically, ICE provided information on aliens who were charged with homicides after being released and aliens who were released multiple times by ICE.

The criminal aliens released by ICE in these years — who had already been convicted of thousands of crimes — are responsible for a significant crime spree in American communities, including 124 aliens charged with 135 new homicides. Inexplicably, ICE is choosing to release some criminal aliens multiple times.

Only a tiny percentage of the released criminals have been removed — most receive the most generous forms of due process available, and are allowed to remain at large, without supervision, while they await drawn-out immigration hearings. They are permitted to take advantage of this inefficient processing even though they are more likely to re-offend than they are to be granted legal status.

There is a human cost to the Obama administration’s careless catch and release policies for criminal aliens, euphemistically known as “prioritization”. These policies have led to 124 new homicides since 2010, and thousands of other crimes that harm citizens and degrade the quality of life in American communities.

124 Aliens Charged With Homicide After Release Since 2010

A total of 121 criminal aliens who were freed by ICE over the five-year period between 2010 and 2014 were subsequently charged with homicide-related crimes within that time frame. (Three more were charged in 2015; see below.) These 121 accused murderers were associated with 250 different communities in the United States, with the most clustered in California, New York and Texas.

Source: ICE information provided to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
View Image of Map

Some aliens had multiple zip codes associated with them in ICE’s system, so the records include more zip codes than the 121 individual criminal aliens charged through 2014. (Three more were charged in 2015; ICE did not provide their zip codes.)

These aliens were charged with a total of 135 homicide-related crimes after release. Two of them had homicide-related convictions even before they were released.

These aliens had 464 criminal convictions prior to release by ICE, ranging from drug crimes to DUI and other driving offenses to larceny and theft.

Another three aliens who were released by ICE during that time were charged with homicides during the first 10 months of FY2015, bring the total number of criminals aliens released by ICE who subsequently were charged with homicide to 124.

This tally does not include aliens who were released by sanctuary jurisdictions, nor those aliens that were released by local law enforcement agencies after ICE declined to take them into custody due to Obama administration prioritization policies. This list includes only those aliens that ICE arrested and then released.

The names of the criminal aliens were redacted by the Judiciary Committee, but the list presumably includes murderers like Apolinar Altamirano, an illegal alien who was arrested by ICE in 2013 following his conviction on local charges involving a burglary and abduction, but who was released on a $10,000 bond and permitted to remain free and elect to have deportation proceedings that would take years to complete. In January 2015 Altamirano shot and killed 21-year-old Grant Ronnebeck while he was working at a convenience store where Altamirano had come to buy cigarettes.

Aliens Released By ICE on Multiple Occasions Since 2013 Commit Hundreds of New Crimes

ICE reported that there are 156 criminal aliens who were released at least twice by ICE since 2013. Between them, these criminals had 1,776 convictions before their first release in 2013, with burglary, larceny, and drug possession listed most frequently.

The vast majority (124) of these criminal aliens were released in California. In addition, 16 were released in Arizona, six in Texas, three in Florida, two in Georgia, and one each in North Carolina, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon.

These criminal aliens racked up a total of 243 additional convictions after being freed by ICE. The largest number (24) were for drunk or drugged driving, but they also included drug offenses, burglary, theft and larceny, and sex offenses.

ICE further disclosed that 47 of the recidivist aliens who were released at least twice had since been charged with an additional 106 crimes since their most recent release. So far, 20 have been convicted of crimes including burglary, dangerous drugs, DUI, fraud, and assault on a police officer.

Why Were They Released?

ICE has previously disclosed that 75 percent of the homicidal criminal aliens were released due to court orders, including the so-called Zadvydas cases, in which the alien’s home country would not take them back. The rest were released by ICE’s choice.

Of the 156 recidivists that ICE released at least twice, fewer than half (67) were released because their home country would not take them back, 16 were released on bond by an immigration judge, and 73 were released by ICE’s choice. ICE says it tried to contest only one of the releases ordered by an immigration judge — meaning that ICE essentially consented to more than half of these releases.

Of the 156, a total of 88 were released under “supervision”, 40 were released on bond, and 28 were released on an order of recognizance (without supervision).

In a separate communication, ICE provided a list of the countries that currently are uncooperative in accepting their deported citizens: Afghanistan, Algeria, Burundi, Cape Verde, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

Criminal Aliens Released in 2014 Were Convicted of 2,560 New Crimes

In 2014, ICE released a total of 30,558 criminal aliens from its custody. These aliens had already been convicted of 92,347 crimes before they were released by ICE.

As of July 25, 2015, a total of 1,895 aliens have been charged with a crime after being freed by ICE. As of that date, 1,607 aliens had been convicted of a crime after being freed by ICE. The total number of new crimes for which these aliens were convicted after ICE released them was 2,560.

These 2,560 new crimes by aliens ICE released instead of deported in 2014 include: 298 dangerous drug offenses, 185 assaults, 40 weapons offenses, 28 sex offenses, 10 sex assaults, four kidnappings, two arsons, and one homicide. There were 1,044 traffic offenses included in the list.

Only 3 percent of the Criminal Aliens Released in 2014 Have Been Removed

As of July 25, 2015, only 974 (3 percent) of the 30,558 criminal aliens freed by ICE in 2014 have been removed. Presumably some of these aliens are again incarcerated or in ICE custody following conviction for the 2,560 new crimes after their release by ICE.

However, ICE reports that 28,017 still had a pending immigration case as of July 25, 2015, suggesting that many of these released criminal aliens will remain here for some time under Obama administration policies that allow them to elect for drawn-out immigration court proceedings rather than accelerated forms of due process and removal.

In addition, there were 1,567 of these released criminal aliens who have been allowed to stay in the United States.

ICE’s full response to the Judiciary Committee’s inquiries can be found here.

Improved Reporting on Immigration Status of Criminals Needed

The public should not have to rely on members of Congress to demand information from federal immigration agencies about criminal aliens. Immigration status should be reported on a routine basis by all law enforcement agencies, so that federal authorities can respond appropriately when an alien is arrested, and so that the public can determine the true public safety impact of immigration policy. Legislation has been introduced by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) that would remedy this problem.

By Summer: The Final Benghazi Cmte Report Published

Posted on March 14, 2016March 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Timing is everything and yet there are still a handful of additional investigations still to come.

A big question that remains unanswered is where on Ahmed Abu Khattallah, the only attacker that has been arrested.

According to a press release from the Justice Department:

PBS: “The superseding indictment describes Khatallah’s alleged role in the attacks at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi and a second U.S. facility there, known as the annex. According to the superseding indictment, Khatallah was a leader of an extremist militia group and he conspired with others to attack the facilities, kill U.S. citizens, destroy buildings and other property, and plunder materials, including documents, maps and computers containing sensitive information.

“The offenses that could carry death sentences include one count of murder of an internationally protected person; three counts of murder of an officer and employee of the United States; four counts of killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility involving the use of a firearm and a dangerous weapon; and two counts of maliciously damaging and destroying U.S. property by means of fire and an explosive causing death.”

In the indictment, the U.S. alleges that Khatallah undertook the attack because he had learned the United States had two intelligence facilities in Benghazi.

House Benghazi probe: Report by summer, factor for Clinton

WASHINGTON (AP) – Nearly two years after it was created, the House Benghazi Committee is plowing ahead, interviewing witnesses, reviewing documents and promising a final report “before summer” that is certain to have repercussions for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

The panel’s Republican chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, said in an email to The Associated Press that the committee has made “considerable progress” investigating the deadly 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

Gowdy declined to elaborate specifically on what progress has been made beyond listing new witnesses and documents.

The Benghazi inquiry has gone on longer than the 9/11 Commission took to investigate the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, spending more than $6 million in the process, Democrats said. They say the only goal of the investigation is to undermine Clinton’s candidacy.

Gowdy declined to be interviewed, but said in a statement that the committee had advanced in its inquiry in recent weeks, after interviewing national security adviser Susan Rice; her deputy, Ben Rhodes, and other witnesses. Former CIA Director David Petraeus and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are among those who have testified before the panel in closed-door sessions at the Capitol.

Many of the witnesses, including Rice and Rhodes, had not been interviewed before by a congressional committee, Gowdy said. The panel has interviewed a total of 83 witnesses since its creation in May 2014, including 65 never before questioned by lawmakers, he said in an email to The Associated Press.

The committee also has gained access to documents from the State Department and CIA and to a cache of emails from Clinton and Stevens, who was killed on Sept. 11, 2012 in twin attacks on the diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi.

“The American people and the families of the victims deserve the truth, and I’m confident the value and fairness of our investigation will be abundantly clear to everyone when they see the report for themselves,” Gowdy said in an email, promising the report “as soon as possible, before summer.”

Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks, dismissed the panel’s work, noting at a recent Democratic debate that she testified before Gowdy and other lawmakers for nearly 11 hours last fall.

“Anybody who watched that and listened to it knows that I answered every question that I was asked, and when it was over the Republicans had to admit they didn’t learn anything,” Clinton said.

She was referring to Gowdy’s comments immediately after the Oct. 22 hearing in which he struggled to explain what the committee – and the American public – learned from the marathon session. “I don’t know that she testified that much differently than she has the previous times that she’s testified,” he said.

Democrats are skeptical about Gowdy and the GOP members finishing their report in a few months, noting that the committee has blown through other self-imposed deadlines.

“The only real deadline is the presidential election” in November, said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the Benghazi panel and a longtime Gowdy critic.

Schiff dismissed Gowdy’s claim that new witnesses and documents have led to progress in the investigation. “They have a number of new witnesses and a number of new documents, but no new facts,” he said.

“I don’t think there are new meaningful facts to uncover at this point,” after seven previous congressional investigations and an independent panel led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Schiff said.

Schiff serves on the House intelligence committee, which completed its investigation in 2014.

The Pickering-Mullen report said security at the Benghazi compound was “grossly inadequate” and that requests for security improvements were not acted upon in Washington. Subsequent congressional reports debunked various claims, including a “stand down” order to the military.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Benghazi committee’s senior Democrat, said the 22-month-old panel is “nothing more than a taxpayer-funded effort to bring harm to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Republicans say the committee has been hindered by stonewalling by the State Department and other executive branch agencies. And they say Schiff and other Democrats have done more carping about the committee than constructive work on its behalf.

Still, Republican insistence that the investigation is not politically motivated was undermined last year when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., suggested that the Benghazi panel could take credit for Clinton’s slumping poll numbers.

Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., a member of the Benghazi committee, said Clinton’s testimony was the most visible, but not necessarily the most important, aspect of the panel’s work.

“We want to know what went wrong between the secretary of state, Defense Department, White House and CIA,” Brooks said at a Rotary Club meeting last week in Anderson, Ind. The Herald Bulletin of Anderson reported on the event.

“We want to prevent this from happening again, which is what the families of the victims want,” Brooks said, according to the newspaper.

al Qaeda in Maghreb Attacks Ivory Coast, Americans

Posted on March 14, 2016March 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

FNC: The terrorist attack in the Ivory Coast Sunday most likely targeted a US delegation led by the assistant commerce secretary visiting the country, a diplomatic source in the region tells Fox News. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Marcus Jadotte was leading a group of Americans in Grand-Bassam, located 25 miles east of the capital city of Abidjan, including college recruiters from the University of Florida. US embassy officials from Abidjan were also included in the group, according to the source.

Eyewitnesses describe Ivory Coast beach resort atrocity

Western tourists and beachgoers described scenes of panic and carnage on Sunday as Al Qaeda-linked gunmen opened fire killing 16 people at a usually sleepy seaside town in Ivory Coast before special forces intervened.

France24: Grand-Bassam, a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts foreigners and the Ivorian elite, briefly became a war zone Sunday as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) gunmen shot beachgoers.

“We were eating, when suddenly we heard gunshots. People where running in all directions and we didn’t know what was going on”, one witness told FRANCE 24.

“The shots started getting closer and we saw people coming our way. I told my wife ‘we can’t stay here’, and 20 seconds after that they killed three people behind us”, he said.

“It was truly, truly, terrifying, it was indeed terrorists,” eyewitness Marie-Claire Yapi, who was separated from her nine-month old baby and her sister in the chaos, told FRANCE 24. “Someone said to me: ‘Run, this is serious – they are killing everyone.’”

Ivorian officials said six terrorists stormed the beach, but AQIM praised its three “heroes” for the attack in an online statement.

‘A blast every 10 to 15 seconds’

“It all started down by the beach, as soon as they saw someone they would open fire. Everyone began running. There were women and children running and looking for a place to hide,” witness Marie Bassole told Reuters.

Koumena Kakou Bertin said that he heard the attackers shouting “Allahu Akbar”, Arabic for “God is great”, as they sprayed the beach with bullets.

Charles-Philippe d’Orleans, a retired French army officer who served in the Ivory Coast, was also on the beach at the moment of the attack.

“We could hear a blast every 10 to 15 seconds. They were shooting at us and the bullets were flying everywhere”, he told French weekly Paris Match.

“I did not hear shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’, nor did I hear repeated bursts of gunfire that are usual for automatic weapons. I think they had handguns, like 9 mm or Magnums” he added.

Beach packed due to heatwave

After targetting swimmers and sunbathers, the gunmen turned their attention to hotels near the shore, including the Grand Bassam’s Chelsea Hotel and the Hotel Etoile du Sud.

The Etoile du Sud was packed full of beachgoers and expats escaping the current heatwave when the gunmen attacked.

“I saw one of the attackers from far away”, said Abbas El-Roz, a Lebanese salesman, who was swimming in the hotel’s pool when the attackers struck. “He had a Kalashnikov and a grenade belt. He was looking for people”.

Ivorians and Europeans among victims

Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara praised special forces for regaining control of the situation in a relatively short amount of time. “This attack was brought under control in 45 minutes thanks to our security forces”, he said on national television.

Two special forces soldiers were killed in the gun battle with the attackers, Ivorian officials said.

Four Europeans were also among the dead, with France’s foreign ministry confirming that one French national died in the attack.

The assault itself resembled the terrorist attack on a Tunisian beach resort in June 2015, and comes on the heels of similar deadly incidents in Mali and Burkina Faso.

“Most of the victims are Africans, Africans from Ivory Coast or from neighbouring countries”, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement on Sunday.

“So it is one again Africa that has been targeted by terrorism”, he added.

However, FRANCE 24’s expert on jihadi movements Wassim Nasr, said the attack should be considered part of al Qaeda’s war against the West, and France in particular.

“They target wherever they see French interests, or French or [other] Western citizens. They are trying to export their war to Western Africa. So I suspect that more attacks will happen in this region”, Nasr added.

Additional details here.